Thursday 6 September 2012 03.47 EDT
First published on Thursday 6 September 2012 03.47 EDT

A four-year-old girl has been found alive after hiding for eight hours in the back of a British-registered car in France under the bodies of two shooting victims.

The girl, who has not been named, was found at around midnight on Wednesday underneath two dead women in the back of the car, a French prosecutor said. A man was found dead in the driver's seat and a second girl, believed to be six or seven, was discovered lying injured on the road near the BMW people carrier. Police believe all five people to be members of a British family on holiday.

The local prosecutor Eric Maillaud said the girl found in the car "couldn't tell the difference between the good and the bad people". She immediately smiled and began speaking in English when a gendarme took her in his arms.

A fourth adult, a male cyclist who police believe was "in the wrong place at the wrong time", was also found dead at the scene.

Police have confirmed that the driver of the car, found slumped over the driving wheel, was a UK citizen, the BBC reported. One of the women sitting in the back was thought to be his wife, and the other is believed to be the children's grandmother.

Maillaud said: "The owner of the vehicle was British and he was the person who identified himself to the campsite [where they were staying]. He is presumed to be a victim and was accompanied by two women and two little girls. We can assume it's a family although it is yet to be proved.

"We have been taking evidence, including DNA, which will be sent to the British authorities for confirmation."

Autopsies will be carried out on Thursday or Friday.

The family had been staying at a campsite in Saint-Jorioz with their two daughters. Police say there are still no clues as to the motive for the killings and no arrests have yet been made.

Maillaud said 15 cartridges were found around the car, suggesting all the gunshots had come from outside the car, and an automatic pistol appeared to have been used but no weapon has been found.

He described the discovery as being like a scene from a film: "We don't know who could have done this. We have no idea."

The alarm was raised shortly after the shootings by a second cyclist – reported to be British – who discovered the girl lying seriously injured in front of the BMW in a secluded car park near the village of Chevaline, close to Lake Annecy. He was in a state of shock afterwards but told police officers he had been overtaken on the path by the cyclist who he then discovered lying dead near the car.

Police said a man "dressed in cycling gear" was found near the car and his bicycle was found close by. He was identified by police after his wife, worried when he did not return from his cycle ride, went a to a local police station with a photograph of him. The elder girl found near the car had been beaten and suffered a fractured skull, said Maillaud. She was taken by helicopter to Grenoble hospital, where he said she "seems to be pulling through".

Explaining the failure to discover the four-year old earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Benoit Vinnemann said: "We had instructions not to enter the car and not to move the bodies. Firemen, technicians and doctors all looked into the car through the holes in the windows but none of them saw the girl. She didn't budge. She stayed under the legs of her mother … She was so close to her mother they appeared as one mass."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are aware of the reports of the shooting and we are looking into these urgently."

The area around the car park was sealed off and 60 gendarmes were searching for evidence and combing the forest for possible perpetrators.

The local Dauphiné Libéré newspaper said Chevaline residents had reported seeing a car leaving the village at high speed late on Wednesday afternoon.

With a population of little more than 200, Chevaline lies within the boundaries of one of France's largest national parks, the Parc Naturel Régional du Massif des Bauges.

"A lot of people are coming here to spend holidays and use the lake because we have a beautiful landscape," Leila Lamnaouer, a French journalist, told Sky News. "A lot of English people live here because they love the place."

The newspaper L'Essor Savoyard reported that residents had been left shocked by the attacks, saying that the region was usually quiet.

The mayor, Didier Berthollet, told the newspaper that the forest road where the car was found was popular with walkers.